


Men Make Monsters Out Of Other Men

by angelsfallingdeancatch



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Beverly Marsh is a Good Friend, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Everyone is a Good Friend, Multi, Multiple Universes Colliding, Multiple space demons? As a treat., POV Multiple, Post-Pennywise (IT), Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Stanley Uris Lives, Stanley Uris-centric, The Losers Club (IT) Love Each Other, The Losers Live Together, There will be sex but not in the main story, ill post them independently of each other, is this a self insert? Maybe so., this is a whole thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22477006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsfallingdeancatch/pseuds/angelsfallingdeancatch
Summary: Parallel Universes, Other Lucky Sevens, And More Monsters? The Losers didn’t sign up for this.Pennywise tried to create children to wreck havoc, and in some ways he’s succeeded. But the Turtle intervened and some of these half demon children are more human than evil.Katie has been with the Losers through many different lives, in different ways. This time, however, she did not grow up with them, leaving her to alone, except for her sister. The Losers defeat Pennywise as children and move away, but the magic in Derry is strong and they forget.Katie, luckily, remembers all these lives, and can even watch and interact with other universes— that’s her only real power besides sheer stubborn will.But when shit starts happening in Derry during college, Katie is faced with a decision: head to hell or leave Mike on his own.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Stanley Uris/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. Stanley Takes A Bath

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an AU I’ve been working on for a few months. I feel wary because of the OC’s, but I hope you like them. No beta we just die. Please comment if you feel so inclined!

All Stan could see was a fuzzy ring of colors, slowly folding into new scenes in front of him as he was moved around. At least, he thought he was moving, he couldn’t feel his limbs. ‘I must have lost a blood,’ he thought wearily, a frown spilling over his wet face. ‘Wait, what happened?’ Stan couldn’t remember exactly, he heard from Mike, and—  


He squinted, trying to actually see where he was being taken and by who, but his headache became stabbing and he had to slam his eyes shut.  


“You’re okay, okay, Stan?” came a voice, low but feminine. He recognized it, from somewhere, but couldn’t place how. He felt a hand card through his wet curls, the person, a woman, maybe, sighed like a heavy burden was going to break them.  


“Stan, I’ll tell the others, okay? You won’t be alone, I promise you that. You aren’t alone,” she continued, her tone resolute.  


‘The others?’ He questioned to himself. ‘What others, does she mean...Mike and Bill?’ He tried to open his eyes again to see the person who was cradling his head so fiercely, but all he saw was black nothingness, and all the sounds around him quieted.

\-------

It never occurred to Mike that this might happen, which, in retrospect, was dumb of him. The lights in the old library were off except in his office, and he wondered if shortsighted people should be librarians. He grimaced at the phone he has clutched in his hand, wishing he wasn't having to make these calls, again. ‘Time to be brave,’ he thought.  


The phone rang lazily twice before Bill answered a forced, “Hello? Mike?”  


Mike pinched the skin between his eyes and his forehead and sighed into the receiver.  


“Mike?” Now Bill sounded concerned, less abrasive. So like Bill, to try and make Mike feel safe.  


“Bill, I’m sorry to call so soon but...” he drifted off, shoulders sagging. God, why did this shit always happen to them?  


“What, Jesus Mike, what’s up?” He sounded a bit older, a bit more anxious.  


“It’s Stan. We have to go to Atlanta.”  


Here Bill was quiet, worry coming through the phone. Bill would never say no, not for Stan.  


“He didn’t...did he?” Bill’s voice cracked before clearing his throat. Bill was oblivious but he knew Stan. He knew he wasn’t the only one who lost something that day in the sewers.  


“He tried,” Mike sighed, again, wishing that he didn’t have to call Richie after this, and then Bev, and then Eddie, and then—  


“Hey, Mike, we’ll all be there,” Bill sounded so assured, suddenly, like he knew Mike was feeling uneasy. Holy hell had Mike missed his best friend. “I’ll call Richie, and Eddie, okay? You don’t have to call everyone, I got it.”  


Dear old Bill, Mike thought lovingly, smiling against the cell phone. “Thanks Big Bill, I appreciate that.” He glanced at his old leather strap watch. “I’m heading to the airport now. Gonna head straight there.”  


“Meet you there, Mikey. Give me Stan’s girlfriends number. I’ll check up on her.”  


Mike froze, pursing his lips. “I don’t have it. I’ll have to have the hospital call her.” The silence on the other end of the line lingered before Bill mumbled  


“Then who you let you know about Stan?” Mike sighed heavily and rested against the library’s oak desk as his legs grew tired.  


“It’s a long story.”

\-------

Richie groaned, in an overly obnoxious way, at how his back was killing after the last minute flight. Eddie flicked Richie’s noise in silent retribution, to which Richie whined pitifully. Eddie rolled his eyes but bumped his shoulder against Richie’s disgusting floral one. Oh, how Richie had missed this fucker.  


He glanced around to the rest of the losers as they made their way down the hospital hallway, plastic and white and sterile. He’d honestly missed all these fuckers, if he was honest. Eddie had shifted closer to Richie and away from the hospital wall, Bev had a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, but was sharing a Look with Ben. Mike looked at Bill like a lost dog, but Bill was staring determinedly at the ground.  


A movement in front of them caught Richie’s glass-covered eyes. He stopped.  


“Hey, like, isn’t that Stanley’s room?”  


All their heads shot to a short woman in a green dress. She stood leaning against the door frame of number 435, and murmuring something Richie couldn’t hear.  


“Hey isn’t that—“ Eddie started, eyes widening.  


“Blood?” Finished Bev, paling.  


It was true, the stranger’s mousy brown hair was thick with it, her hands dyed, her fat thighs leading to red splotchy knees, as if she’d knelt in it.  


The woman froze and glanced over her shoulder, doe eyes catching Richie’s gaze first, before rapidly swinging down the line onto Bill. She glanced quickly down at herself, seemed to realize her appearance in horror, Bill’s face blending into rage, and Bev taking a step forward.  


“Katie!” Mike called after her, but the woman had abandoned her high heels and taken off down the corridor, almost taking out a nurse before rounding the corner. “Jesus...” Mike groaned, glancing at Richie and grabbing Bill’s arm, effectively anchoring him. “It’s fine, I got her, go be with Stan.”  


Richie’s gave Mike a questioning look. Maybe she had moved to Derry and that’s how Mike knew her, but then again, she would have also had to know Stan, and Richie didn’t remember her from growing up.  


Mike gave him a small, sad smile as he began to jog after the woman—Katie. “I’ll explain, Rich, I promise.”  


He and Eddie shared a look that they’d make sure of that.


	2. I Will Fix Canon On My Honor

Stan woke up the next morning, face sheer white but his grin swarmed his face. His friends, his losers, they were here. Bev was sloped sloppily over Ben’s lap, whose head leaned so far back Stan was sure he wouldn’t be able to turn his neck when he came to. Eddie was curled up, cat-like, in another chair, Richie’s arm sling across his shoulders as he snored. Bill had fallen asleep with his hand on Stan’s.  


And Mikey stood in the doorway, his toothy smile joining Stan’s when their eyes met.  


“Look who decided to wake up, Staniel,” Richie cried, standing up so fast he tripped a little on Eddie’s feet, earning a sleepy ‘hey!’ from inside Eddie’s jacket cocoon. He hurried over to where Bill was blinking awake at Stan’s side. “You look like shit, man,” he commented, and Stan felt like he’d never stop smiling as he watched Bev stretch and roll her eyes.  


He glanced around the room for...for...his face pinched in confusion. For who? It hadn’t been Patty who dragged him out of the tub, he knew that much, one because he and Patty had just broken up, and she didn’t have the keys to the apartment anymore. The thought made him wistfully glance out the window, where she must be taking her plane to go visit her friends in France. He was going to miss her, but she’d be back. And maybe they’d get back together again—  


Wait, wait, so if it wasn’t Patty…  


“How did you know?” His soft, strained voice surprised even him. His hand twitched in Bill’s hold but Bill just held on tighter.  


Everyone, even Ben who rubbed his neck like a dirty washcloth, looked at Mike, who Stan had addressed the question to.  


Mike tapped the door frame slowly, as if asking for luck, and took a step inside the brightly lit hospital room.  


“Yeah, that’s...the thing,” he started, glancing over his shoulder and closing the door.  


“You called her Katie,” Eddie commented, eyes and nose sticking out over his nest. Richie nodded, leaning against Stan’s cold metal bed frame.  


Stan pursed his lips. “Katie,” he tasted it, tried it out. Why did it feel...normal? Like when he became friends with Eddie after Richie accidentally tripped him in kindergarten and Stan had helped him up, or when they protected Mike with rocks against fucking Bowers that summer?  


Mike watched Stan’s reaction but his face was unreadable. “Yeah, that’s her name,” he said noncommittally, until Bill state broke through his facade. “Okay, okay, it’s weird.”  


“Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed,” Bev said, but her smile was kind. “We can take it,” her voice grew stilted, “I mean it’s not...not about IT right?”  


Mike shook his head as fast as he could manage, not wanting to scare them. “Not really. IT’s dead, at least here, in this Derry, we killed IT.”  


“This Derry?” Stan croaked out, before Richie shushed him so he wouldn’t lose his voice.  


“You guys know about parallel and multiple universes, right?”  


“Yeah,” Ben answered, leaning his elbows against his knees, “so, what, in this ‘universe’ IT’s dead? But not in others?”  


Mikes nodded, lips tight. “There were books about it, books that mentioned other IT’s, other histories. And, they were always in association with—with Katie.”  


The air was silent until Eddie shook off with jacket, folding on the back of his chair. “So, what, she’s another one?”  


“No, no, it’s more that, she’s...related.”  


Bev’s mouth fell open, “no, that would mean...”  


Ben took her hand and squeezed it gently, causing Bev to gaze at him and let go of the tension in her shoulders.  


“Yeah, IT’s, well, for lack of a better word, her dad.”  


Richie coughed out a laugh, which caused Bev to throw a glare at him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, her what? What, her mom just, like, shacked up with IT?”  


Mike wondered if he would ever get used to his life now. “No, Rich, it’s more that IT got bored and tried to...expand, but something didn’t let it work out that way.”  


Stan hummed in thought. “Okay, so, Katie’s a half sky demon, how in the hell did she get in my house?” Stan raised an eyebrow, “and why?”  


Richie waggled an eyebrow and Stan slapped his hand away in disgust. Did Richie’s humor really not evolve, Stan was so unimpressed.  


“I think she should probably tell you that,” Mike shrugged, sitting on the foot of Stan’s bed.  


Eddie scoffed, “what, like, talk to her?”  


Mike shot him a look and Eddie bit his lip. “Yeah, cause she’s one of the only reasons I stayed sane while I was here.”  


“You’re...friends?” Bev offered, glancing at Stanley, who was sifting through his memories searching for a ‘Katie’.  


“Yeah, her...brother, I guess, came to cause some trouble a few years ago, when you all first started college, but Katie showed up and helped me.”  


“What, does IT have a whole fucking family of half monster babies?” Richie asked, hands up in the air like that was the craziest thing he had ever heard.  


Mike and Bill shared a look, before sharing it with Stanley.  


“Yeah, Rich, I think that’s exactly what’s going on,” Bill supplied, letting go of Stan’s hand to stand up and clap Mike on the back. Privately he whispered, “I’m glad you weren’t alone, you know,” and Mike couldn’t hide his welcoming grin. He saw that Stan saw their exchange, but Stan just smirked.  


Oh, how he’d missed the losers, Stan thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you love Stan and you know it clap your hands! 
> 
> Please love me and leave comments!


	3. The Losers Meet Another Loser

“What is your fucking problem,” Katie murmured as she pushed past her sister into Mike’s kitchen. She began tearing open cupboards, ignoring a can of corn that jumped out and slammed onto the floor.

Her sister took the corner of the living room in a rush, her face hot with anger. 

“My problem, my problem!?” Lanny shouted, trying to be heard over the noise that Katie was obviously trying to make as loud as possible. “Your problem is you left me,all alone, to go fight our brother,” she said stiffly, hopping onto the kitchen counter, not caring that her sneakers were dirty. And what 14 year old would? “And then,” she said dramatically, raising her arms up, oblivious to the 7 adults standing in the front yard, “you went and—and—“

“Killed him?” Katie guessed, throwing down an old pan with abandon, loud enough that she did not hear the front door open. “What was I supposed to do with a self-depicted bad guy who wanted to kill a bunch of people, including Mike?” She growled out Mike’s name, the thought of losing him, of the others disappearing one by one with no memories to aid them against the threat pushing ice into her stomach. 

“Mike can take care of himself!” Lanny said, arms crossed, “and besides, it’s not like Mark’s done anything like that before!”

Katie cursed as her small hands slipped and dropped some eggshells in the pan, before almost burning her fingers in the butter when she tried to fish them out. 

“Look, it’s not...his fault. It’s, you know, Joe’s fault, I get that. Doesn’t fucking stop what he chose to do on fucking Christmas!” 

“You shouldn’t have hurt him like that!” It came out strangled and Katie’s shoulders dropped, her hand letting go of the spatula with a soft thud. 

“You think I meant to...do that? To Mark?” Katie’s voice was much smaller than it had been, but she didn’t turn around to face Lanny. She couldn’t, she knew why her younger sister was so upset, why she decided to freak out now, some seemingly random Friday morning, and it was her fault. Like so many things.

Lanny didn’t answer, which was answer enough. 

“I didn’t, okay? I had to, it was...the only option.” She almost whispered it, blinking hard at the microwave and shrugging. “I’m sorry.”

The darker haired girl hopped off the counter and pattered over to Katie, arms coming around her waist. Lanny was almost as tall as her now, which wasn’t saying much, but it gave her some small pride. It proved she wasn’t a kid anymore, or at least, not for much longer.

Katie bowed her head and shook it, as if noping away thoughts. Lanny leaned her chin over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out in disgust. 

“The eggs are burning.”

“Shit!” Katie moved so fast Lanny stumbled off her back and laughed, easily letting go of her anger, if only for a moment. “Jeez, Lanny, you could have warned me!”  
But she wasn’t listening. Her blue eyes were glaring at 7 very startled and silent adults, all of whom she knew, but she had forgotten that only one of them knew her. 

“Close your mouth, Tozier,” she quipped, hip landing against the counter she had sat on previously. 

Katie’s entire body went pillar still, her hand froze in the middle of putting eggs on a plate, and she still didn’t turn around. Maybe if she moved her head down more her hair would cover her face and she could just refuse to acknowledge this situation. It’s cool, right? God, this was the worst.

Oh well. Gotta suck it up.

“I didn’t make enough eggs for you, Mikey, or, like, anyone else but me,” she said. While her voice was melodic and deep, it was also comedically stilted. Stan’s eyes zeroed in on it as familiar, answering his unasked question. 

He frowned, because a pull in his chest told him he missed this woman, but he didn’t know her. As Katie was attempting to act normal, Richie still hadn’t closed his mouth and Lanny was openly mocking him now. “What, Rich Bitch, got tongue-in-ass disease?” 

Everyone looked at Richie, whose eyes were returning her glare, and then they looked at Katie when she let out a snort, like this was a super normal thing to say to strangers. 

“Look, kid, I don’t know what your deal is, but I’m, like, your elder and shit,” Richie started to rant before Lanny laughed outright and walked across the kitchen to help plate the eggs. Katie noted that they would catch fire and burn down Mike’s nice cottage kitchen. Oops. 

Having the plastic spatula gently taken from her grip sent Katie into motion. She spun around, a fake grin plastered hastily on her round face. “Melanie, darling, they don’t know who you are.” She winced at the disappointed pout her sister sent her.

“Oh,” she said, crawling back up onto the counter to dig for salt, “well, fucking fix that, then.”

Katie bit her lip and kept looking somewhere above Richie’s head. Mikey tried to catch her eye, but had to stop to catch books that started to fall from the green bookshelf that Bill had painted for him in senior year. The lights began to switch on and off, and Katie was two seconds away from hyperventilating.

“Hey, Kat, honey, it’s okay,” Mike tried, but before he could blink the world changed drastically. They were in Richie’s house in, Mike would guess, about 1978, and they were surrounded by an impish looking 7 year old Richie, a 7 year old business casual Stan, and a very angry 7 year old Katie. 

“Oh, look, a fun trip,” said Lanny, her face scrunched up in annoyance. 

Bev took an alarmed step back into Ben, who softly placed his hands on the sides of her arms to steady her. Richie coughed, then promptly vomited, causing Eddie to scream and Bill to start laughing in an awkward panic.

“I’m sorry,” Katie whispered, looking small, body curled up around her stomach. She looked too pale and her nose was bleeding.   
“Freaked out a little, Mike. Sorry.”

Mike dropped his hand from Richie’s back (where he had been rubbing circles against his ugly over shirt) and put an arm slowly around Katie’s shoulders. Seeing him and Katie together was funny, in a way. Mike wasn’t super tall, but she was much smaller than him, despite being fat. Mike showed his kindness to her so brightly that Eddie decided to step forward. 

“Are you okay, um, Katie?” Eddie asked as he sidestepped Richie’s mess and inched closer. 

“She’s just having a panic attack, it’ll pass,” Mike answered when Katie was silent. 

“Sorry,” she repeated. She had become distracted by their child selves playing in the Tozier living room. Stan was also similarly ensnared.

Small Stan was standing, defiant, hands on his tiny hips, while tiny Richie hid behind him, head down tucked into Stan’s back. Katie, her curly ponytail swinging as she tried to jump around Stan, was holding Richie’s too-big glasses in her fist.

“Stanley,” she whined, almost grabbing Richie’s arm but missing, “let me get him!”

Little Stan shook his head very seriously, holding out his hand and giving her a small smile, almost secretive. She glanced at his hand, at Richie’s glasses, and then at Stan’s face. 

“But he was mean...” she trailed off, handing over the dumb purple rimmed glasses. Richie grinned and ran out from behind Stanley to grab at the glasses and pushed past Katie.

“See you, suckers!” he cackled, tumbling into the kitchen on all fours. 

Stan started to chase after him, but skidded to a stop, holding out his hand again. 

“Come on,” he said conspiratorially with a private grin, “I’ll hold him down.”

Katie’s face absolutely lit up, her eyes shining as she smeared the tears she had let fall away from her cheek. She let out a screech, snatched Stan’s hand and took off after Richie.

They could hear the kids screaming and laughing throughout the house and into the backyard. Stan was able to look at this lady--Katie, he reminded himself--and smiled at how much she still resembled the little girl. But what was this memory? Where were they?

“So is this, uh, another one? You know, of the universes?” Ben asked, looking more at Mike than Katie. Mike nodded, pulling Katie closer under his arm as she dropped her shoulders. 

“They can’t see us?” Stan said. Katie wouldn’t quite meet his gaze but her lip flicked up into a smile for a second. 

“Not unless I let them,” she said, resting her head on Mike’s sturdy shoulder. Richie stood up from where he had collapsed onto his knees and wiped his mouth. 

“Gross, Rich Bitch,” Lanny said, showing up at Katie’s other side to put one of her arms around her. Richie frowned at her, then glanced around his old house, though it wasn’t quite how he remembered it.

“Bizarre,” he commented, putting his hands in his pockets.

Eddie, who had been watching little Richie with absolutely adoration, nodded and slapped Richie’s arm. 

“Still have stupid glasses,” he teased with a huge grin. “We stuck here?”

“No, just give her a minute,” Mike said defensively, moving his hand through her sweaty hair. Now that he wasn’t distracted, Eddie pointed out that she needed to lay down. He was worried she’d get ill. Mike nodded, but before he could open his mouth the room swirled and everyone felt something tug through their stomachs like a string.

And then they were back in Mike’s living room.

Lanny ignored everyone in lieu of putting her hands up by her sister’s hips. Katie was barely awake and didn’t react. Gently, Katie began to float, positioned as if sleeping, and Lanny started to lead her upstairs. She stopped half way and shot a look at Eddie. 

“You can come, too, Ed.” 

Eddie sprang up the stairs after them, apparently not thrown by the floating powers, or anything about this crazy situation, and ignored Richie’s ‘hell no’ as he followed Eddie on his heels. 

Bill gave Mike a long look and flopped onto the couch. Ben still held Bev close, both looking frazzled, as he moved them next to Bill. Stan stood next to Mike and watched Richie and Eddie follow Lanny into a room on the second floor. The door opened on its own. 

“What,” he started, before cutting himself off and trying again. “Who?”

Mike put his hand on Stan’s shoulder. “It’s for her to tell you, Stan the Man.”


	4. Normal Day Lads

Stan was convinced Katie was avoiding him. Not that he could prove it, that is. The only ones who seemed to notice anything at all were Mike, who just gave him wistful half smiles when questioned, and Eddie, who just shrugged and went back to playing Nintendo 64 with Richie. 

It’s not like she didn’t talk to him. She did. She sat with them all at dinner. She sometimes even made dinner. She and her sister would play a prank on Eddie or Richie, and Katie would seek him out with her gaze and share a grin, before wrinkling her nose and looking away. She read Bill’s books and laughed with Bev and Ben about the endings, but privately told Bill they were too edgy. What exactly was he trying to say with that ending, anyway? Bill, you could do better.

But he could never get her alone. He hadn’t had a one on one conversation with her, so he still wasn’t sure how she’d even found him in the first place.

If he was honest, that’s not really what he wanted to know. Mostly he wanted to understand why she cared, why she went to such lengths to keep him here, with the losers. Maybe, perhaps, even with her. He understood that she hadn’t intended for him, or any of them but Mike, to know about her, but he didn’t understand that either. Didn’t that ‘flashback’ show that they were friends? That they grew up together? If not this time, then sometime. What if, all times? Why was this one so different?

And why did he care?

Stan kept watching her. At first he told himself that it was to understand her motives, to try and read her, to gauge how safe she was. Soon, though, he admitted to himself that he liked her smile, the curve of it when she laughed, the little circle of her nose, and the way she refused to sit like a normal human being.

“It’s cause I’m Bi,” she said when he commented on how she was sitting with one leg thrown over the arm of the couch, and how that was atrocious of her.

Richie laughed and laughed at that, popping down next to her and said, “yeah, us gays can’t sit.” Eddie’s mouth hung open from where he was seated at the table behind Richie, so Richie, blessedly, didn’t see his reaction. Stan was impressed. Richie was usually so shy about commenting on his sexuality. Maybe being around some ‘gays’ as Katie and Richie called them, was helping Richie feel more stable. Stan shot a look at Eddie, raising an eyebrow, and Eddie snapped his jaw shut and stuff his face back into his Batman comic. God, if Richie and Eddie were the only gays he knew then he’d be homophobic, he was sure. Idiots.

On this particular day, Stan had snuck his way into Derry’s closed library to look for the books Mike had mentioned before. The ones that, allegedly, mentioned this girl. He stood dead in his tracks when he saw Katie and Bev giggling over a book, one that actually looked much more like a journal.

“No!” Bev yelled, voice full of pretend indignation. “What did you do?” Katie snickered and held the journal aloft, and Stan could see very sloppy handwriting on the page. 

“Well, Stan was never one get involved, so I,” she said, pointing to herself, “had to trick Bill into thinking that the dance wasn’t until, like, 7, so Ben would have a chance to ask you to dance.”

Bev cackled again, and Stan smiled at how young she looked. It was almost like being 14 again. 

“And then,” Katie said conspiratorially, “Stan kept him busy until 7:30, because his ‘I-don’t-wanna-get-involved-ass’ is a liar!” Both girls fell into each other, their laughter bouncing off the walls. It was just good, just a normal sweet experience for two girls that deserved it. But when had he started thinking of Katie in the same terms as Bev?

“So, Kat,” Bev sighed out, placing her hand on Katie’s shoulder, “you ever gonna tell him? Or, any of them?” Katie slumped forward into Beverly’s arms and mimicked her sigh. 

“Yeah, when I stop being such a coward.” 

Stan cocked his head at that. He was hoping to listen discreetly, but moments later his hand slipped against a stack of books and sent them cascading to the floor. Bev and Katie jumped and smacked their foreheads together, causing both of them to glare at Stan while holding their heads.

“Little eavesdropper,” Bev said, pulling herself to her feet and putting her hands on her hips.

“No, no, I swear I just walked in,” Stan said, hands stretched out in surrender. Bev shot Katie a look and smirked, before helping her up. Both girls started to walk past him, Katie still pouting about her head injury, but Stan’s hand quickly grabbed her wrist to stop her. 

“Can, I—um, talk to you?” Stan asked, his voice coming out more nervous than intended. Katie sent Bev a pleading stare, but the other girl pretended not to notice. 

“Hey, I got a date with Ben in about 10, so I’ll see you guys later!” Bev said brightly before sprinting out the door.

“You’re a liar and I hate you!” Katie shouted after her before she stopped resisting Stan’s grasp. She huffed, then looked down at their hands and didn’t look up. At first he assumed she was refusing to meet his gaze but then he realized she was tracing his scars with her eyes. 

He was going to be no nonsense with her, or at least, he had planned to be, but his heart was in his throat and his feelings were changing.

“Hey,” he said, voice small but kind, tugging where he held her wrist. She looked up at him, and for the first time he noticed how truly short she was. Her head only came up to his chest, and she had to tilt her head up to face him. 

“I never got to thank you,” he found himself saying, slowly blinking and sinking into her brown eyes. He hadn’t. At first he wasn’t thankful at all, too upset and sad and lost. But he had gained everything back, because she had not let him give up. “It was an amazing thing you did for a friend of a friend,” he said. He watched her eyes water and her blink the emotions back, her mouth going into a hard line. “But we’ve been more than that, yeah?”

She nodded, sniffling a little, before turning her hand to fold into his. They stood there for a while, just looking at each other and holding hands. It didn’t feel like being intimate with someone he didn’t know. It was so much more than that. 

“I think a part of me remembers you, somehow,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. She had saved his life, and if he had to wager, she’d done it more than once in many ways.

A soft sob escaped her and he pulled her onto his chest. She shook in his hug and tears started to stain his pullover, but he didn’t care. He rested his head against her hair and hushed her soothingly. 

He wanted to know. He wanted to know everything. But he guessed he knew the most important part. He had a new friend, and she had him.


	5. Stan REALLY likes birds

The sun sunk drearily through the open window. Mike had wanted the last warm part of the day to reach them all, regardless of the complaint of bugs.   
Stan had secured a place in Mike’s study, and had folded up in the red lounge chair. He held the gleaming binoculars much too hard against his face. He was vibrating in his seat.  
Outside one of the windows, a hummingbird flitted to and fro around the flowers below. It was more pink than anything but, of course, it kiladoscoped into blues and greens. Stan was terrified of moving too much, but he knew his energy was all in his head and that he was being gentle and still. Next to him, his hand sketched a rough outline, his glance moving much like the hummingbird between the page and the binoculars.  
It felt as though he could reach out and hold it, but he didn’t want to interrupt its little life. He was happy to watch.  
“Truly stunning...” he whispered as the bird dashed away into a bush.  
He carefully laid the binoculars back on the desk and almost jumped out of his skin when he noticed Katie sitting against it below him. She had been there the whole time, he had just been so caught up in sketching that he had forgotten. She was reading, though, so maybe he needn’t be embarrassed.  
She smiled at him, a small wistful thing, before glancing back at her book.  
He bit his lip, the unease he usually felt about their, the losers, situation, and his mental health came to a mellow thrum in these small moments. He sank back into the chair and began marking details on his sketch.  
There were many things he could say, but he was having trouble concentrating, and honestly, he didn’t want to ruin the lightness of the mood.  
He settled on saying, “did you know that hummingbirds are the smallest bird?”  
Katie hummed in agreement from her place on the ground. “Is it just ‘cause of the evolutionary change of drinking nectar? I mean, they evolved from swifts, right?”  
The movement of the charcoal screeched to a halt in his hand the same way her words did. Stunned, he whispered, “what?”  
“Swifts, you know? I think you said before that they came from treeswifts, I think, too.”  
He gaped at her and coughed out, “yes, uh-that’s right.”  
Katie hummed again, apparently not noticing his reaction. She turned the page. He watched her lips purse as she mouthed the words, pausing to think over some idea for a few moments, then beginning again.  
She hadn’t just paid attention, she hadn’t just remembered something he said. She cared enough to think about it. He was aghast at the feeling of warmth in his chest.  
“Katie—you...I,” he leaned forward against Mike’s desk to look at her better. She tilted her head up to see him and his heart stuttered at seeing her eyes.  
“Yeah?” She smiled up at him in a lazy way, book held open by her finger.  
He wanted to close it, and put it aside, and for her to touch him instead. He burned with it.  
“You remembered...a bird fact?”  
She shrugged and frowned at him. “I mean, yeah. It’s important to you.”  
She might as well have slapped him with the intimacy he was feeling, it was so shocking.  
Katie turned to face him fully, frown deepening. “You okay, Stan?”  
Everything culminated at once. All these ideas swirling in his head. All pointing to something he was afraid to touch but here it was, shining in front of him. ‘What the hell is happening?’  
He thought about how he would never have seen that hummingbird if she hadn’t stopped him those few months ago. He still could barely remember anything from that night.  
“Show me,” he whispered.  
Her eyebrows scrunched together.  
“I—what?” He noted how lost she looked.   
“Show me how you saved me.”  
She blanched but tried to recover before he could notice. But he noticed. Before he could back track she gritted her jaw and set out her hand.  
He gingerly took it. It was small, much smaller than his, but strong. Katie didn’t ask if he was sure, as if she knew that he was sure without asking. She latched onto him and everything swirled around them. Right before he thought he would vomit, he was standing still again, still in Katie’s grip. A different Katie, the past Katie, was asleep in the room she had upstairs at Mike’s.  
She was dreaming, kicking off her blankets and thrashing around.  
“Inception,” Katie laughed to herself.  
Stan gave her a questioningly look.  
“A vision in a dream,” she answered, and her past self’s dream overcame them.  
He could only see things from what must have been Katie’s perspective, but he could feel her emotions too. His mouth dried up.  
______  
It wasn’t like her usual dreams, not even the ones that played themselves like movies across the walls at Mike’s house. Even they weren’t like this.   
She stood in an apartment that was decorated with things Stan liked. That was her first clue. There was a puzzle, mostly finished, strewn across a table, and the radio played some classical violin that gave her pause. Hadn’t she learned to play that for him, once? The pain of not being his friend, not ever getting to meet him, not this time around, lurched in her chest and she felt as though, in that small moment, she wouldn’t live through it. But, of course, she did. The next breath came and her hand steadied her against his bookshelf filled with things she knew he had read, because Stan always wanted to know more. Stan always had somewhere to go.  
A little painting of chickadees rested on the wall near the puzzle, and Katie smiled, walking over to gently touch the wing of one in mid flight. Thank goodness the bird called to her, otherwise she would not have seen Stan, naked, closing the bathroom door.  
Katie blushed and stared little at the door where Stan had just been, embarrassed and achingly sad all at once. She blinked and stumbled when she ended up on the inside of the spacious bathroom upon opening her eyes. She resolutely did not look at Stan, because this Stan didn’t even know she existed, for God’s sakes, but she saw his face in the mirror. He looked exhausted, and forlorn, and…  
Oh, fuck.  
The last thing she saw as she snapped up in bed in one of Mike’s spare rooms was the blade Stan had held daintily in his hand.  
——

Everything swirled and Stan looked at his Katie, startled at the colors and the sounds. She tugged his arm and he realized that he hadn’t let go of her hand. He held it tighter.  
“It’s just all the stuff that didn't stick out in my mind, so it’s just a blur,” she surmised, watching herself materialize in an old pickup truck on the highway.  
“Here we are.”  
——   
What time had the clock said? Katie was going to slam her head on the steering wheel if she couldn’t decide. She either had five hours or three.   
She fucking hoped it was five. She would never make it to Atlanta from Derry in less than three.   
Katie was certain she’d either time travelled or dissociated the entire flight to Georgia. She almost screamed at the taxi driver when he turned a little too late and had to wait for a red light. She had apologized profusely, thrown who knew how much money his way, and sprinted out the yellow door and up to Stan’s house.  
If the deadline was five hours, now she only had 15 minutes. If it had been three hours...  
The street lights glinted off her brown doe eyes as she pulled at the door, but she found it locked.   
Cursing herself, she tucked some hair behind her ear and glanced over her shoulder.  
Fuck it.   
Her tiny fist smashed through the window, the jacket she had used to cover her hand shredded with glass. She cut open her arm as she wiggled it through the opening and let herself in.   
She could worry about jail and injuries later. Right now all that mattered was Stanley. He hadn’t come running down the stairs in a fury at his home being invaded, so he must have already had the bath water on.  
She had to hurry. Katie ran up the stairs as fast her stubby legs would let her, and banged her shoulder into the bathroom door, sending herself flying across the already wet floor and skidding against the toilet with a loud thud.  
She ignored the pulsing pains of a twisted ankle and began pulling a very wet and bloody Stanley from the tub.   
For a terrifying moment she thought she was too late, that she had misremembered the time. Then he sputtered and she yelled at her phone to call 911, and started robotically telling the operator the address and that they’d need an ambulance.  
‘Attempted suicide,’ she said. ‘Oh for everything in this wretched world let it just be attempted,’ she pleaded.  
“Stan? Stanley, you’re okay, okay?” She knew she was talking to try and stunt her nerves, pleading with her panic disorder not to take over, but some hopeful part of her clung to the idea he could hear her.  
“It’s gonna be okay, Stan, dear, I promise.”   
Stan didn’t answer. She could see him open his eyes, and she had never wanted to kiss anyone more than she did right then, if only to make sure they stayed open.   
“Stan, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pressing her face into his hair. “I should have...I should have known and I...I’m so sorry, love.”  
The sirens sprang to life as they came closer and she held him tight, her sweater wrapped around his wounds, and kissed his forehead.  
‘Please, don’t let him die like this, let him have this life,’ she begged silently to no one in particular. The stress of the day welled up in her throat until she sobbed into Stan’s curls.  
‘Mom,’ she thought, trying not to scream. ‘Please save him.’  
——  
The world wobbled and broke in on itself. Stan barely had time to panic when they were back in the study. Everything was the same but now it was all different.  
Stan inhaled sharply, fighting with the numbness that wanted to take over. He was going to face the darkness, these feelings. He wiped at his face to get rid of the tears he hadn’t noticed he was crying.   
Katie was silent and Stan realized how much that night must have traumatized her. His gut panged with guilt and he tried to pull away from her.  
His hand was in a very tiny hand’s steel grip, however.   
“Katie?” He rasped, looking at the ground. “I-I’m sorry.”  
Katie shook her head and somehow held his hand tighter. Was she the hulk or something?   
“Please, don’t be. I...it’s happened before, and I...I should have thought that that would be an option for you.” She shrugged, “you know, this time around.”  
Stan frowned and put his other hand on her shoulder. “Kat, no, I made a bad decision, that’s not on you.”  
She grimaced, obviously not believing him.  
“Why do you think I’m your responsibility?” He pushed, thinking of how upset she had been. Is that how Richie would have acted? Beverly?   
Katie didn’t answer. She leaned against his shoulder and sighed. “What matters is you made it,” she whispered.  
Stan nodded and pulled her into a hug. He was now more curious than ever, but he would drop it for now. For her sake.


End file.
